What is an award? A recognition of excellence, a badge of honour for an individual. But it's also a celebration of the achievements of a group: winners are representatives of their profession or their generation. That's the common thread between the Diana Awards and the Teaching Awards. Each winner is an inspiration to everyone else in the group, changing their view of what is possible.

This supplement celebrates the extraordinary dedication of ordinary people. They are people whose values are a credit to any society, and the cornerstone of any community.

I was lucky enough to meet some of the Diana award-winners last Saturday. People like Gemma Lang, who overcame the experience of being bullied and set up a support group for fellow victims. A young person who would never claim to be special, making a very special contribution.

Their stories make riveting reading. They display all the virtues: valour, compassion, imagination, teamwork, public spirit and private endeavour.

It's a far cry from the media image we're given of youngsters as antisocial yobs, couch potatoes, or criminals in the making. As schools minister, I know good news stories don't make good headlines. Year after year the media tell us an improvement in results demonstrates that standards have fallen.

If children are endlessly told that their exams are so easy as to be almost worthless, it's no surprise some of them wonder if there's any point in studying at all. It's the same with behaviour. If a young person fears everything he does will be viewed with suspicion, he can feel the world is against him.

Over 40 years ago, CP Snow identified a gulf between the worlds of the arts and the sciences. Today we risk an equally profound division, a "two cultures" society where young and old inhabit opposing camps. Its causes are complex. Adolescence starts earlier, physically and culturally. Yet at the same time more young people are living at home for longer, so the transition to independence is being postponed.

The certainties of the industrial age, father's trade for sons and mother's work for daughters, have been undone. Young people have the chance to choose their own future. But freedoms are matched by risks, from chat-rooms to easy availability of drugs and alcohol.

The process of social change has not just left more young people under pressure. It has left them under pressure with less support. Some parents, with two or more jobs, are work-rich and time-poor. Others have all the time in the world - because they have no employment. Neither extreme is healthy.

It is right to tackle what is going wrong in our society. But a strong civic society is based not just on rights and responsibilities. It is also based on engagement. Offer people engagement and they are more likely to act with responsibility. All the more so if we build a coalition of the responsible against the irresponsible - instead of a coalition of the old against the young.

The Diana awards show that when young people are given the chance to take responsibility, they jump at it. When young people are part of the solution, they minimise the problem. Take Dionne Campbell, who produced a video to help her peers deal with sexual harassment.

This was voluntary work that created a real resource for those with voices that are too seldom heard. Citizenship is a full-time job. Good citizens are inspired by good examples, and many of the young people who received awards on Saturday were set on their course by excellent teachers.

We need to support the foundations of civic society with as much drive as we tackle its problems. We must celebrate contributions to the community with as much imagination as we block threats to it. We must promote the leaders of civic virtue with as much zeal as we prosecute wrong-doing.

The Diana award-winners suggest that if we put our faith in young people, they will repay it many times over.

· School standards minister David Miliband gave the Diana Princess of Wales memorial award for young people annual lecture at the Teaching Awards 2003 gala dinner.